New report on app developers' attitudes towards mobile advertising

Jul 01,2013 by Kaitlin McCloughan

AppFlood recently surveyed over 1000 independent small, medium and large app developers to gain deeper insights into their attitudes towards mobile ad networks. The results show that a lack of clarity and trust in ad network providers are among the main reasons why 70 percent of developers are frustrated with the current state of app marketing.

The pdf of the full report is available to download. Here's a quick summary of what's inside:

Trust is everything

A key area of the survey was how developers chose which advertising company was the best fit for their app launches. To almost half the developers surveyed, the most important factor was their ability to trust the advertising partner to deliver effective results at a reasonable price.

eCPM often exaggerated

In addition, 71 percent of all respondents expressed the view that ad networks often exaggerated their eCPM (effective cost per thousand impressions) claims.

Making the most of a limited budget

This dissatisfaction is unsurprising given the limited marketing budget that many developers have to work with to promote their app. The majority (78 percent) of developers surveyed have a per app marketing budget of USD$5000 or less.

Leaving it to chance

Despite the importance of both cost and trust in defining an app marketing campaign, the survey also reveals a number of developers seemingly chose their marketing channels at random. When asked how they decided which ad network or marketing service to use, 26 percent of smaller developers, 19 percent of medium developers and 12 percent of large developers all responded that “they took a chance” when making their decision.

The study shows that ad networks will have to be more transparent with their app marketing offerings and provide better tools to help developers to understand and calculate return on investment for their app marketing campaigns.

Recommended For You

Kaitlin McCloughan

Kaitlin is a Marketing Manager at PapayaMobile. She joined the Papaya team in 2012 to work on the company's popular social network and is now focused on AppFlood, Papaya's transparent ad network. Kaitlin is based in Beijing. She holds a B.A. in Modern Languages from Beloit College and an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Indiana University. Google +